Quite the lie! We all eventually will be called into jury duty, even famous people. But Neil Patrick Harris did everything in his power to avoid having to go through with it, even pretending to be related to TV host James Corden.

“I tried to get out of it,” the 46-year-old told the Carpool Karaoke star, 40, on The Late Late Show With James Corden on Thursday, January 24. He continued, “I assumed that when you get the thing that says you have to go, that they send that to everybody like spam and that they just hope that people end up going. So I didn’t go, and I was actually working on A Series of Unfortunate Events in Canada, so I had an actual excuse, and finally, they sent me an actual summons. I will go to jail unless I do this.”

James Corden Neil Patrick Harris
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The How I Met Your Mother alum ended up going, and this is where the story gets bizarre. “So I went, and I served my jury duty, and I met with some lawyers, and there was a case about asbestos, and they had to question everyone,” Neil said. “And I had to raise my hand [and] talk to them one-on-one and say I couldn’t go because this very week I was flying to Los Angeles to be on [The Late Late Show] and therefore I wouldn’t be available for the second half of the week.”

A lawyer then told the Gone Girl costar that he was only allowed to use family situations to get out of jury duty. “And he said, ‘Do you have any family that’s going to be in Los Angeles while you’re there?’” Neil recalled. “And I said, ‘Yes, James Corden is my second cousin.’ And he said, ‘Great, you’re free to go.’” Well that’s one idea to go with next time you want to get out of something: just say you’re related to someone famous. Or you can always go with the classic, “Do you know who my father is?”

But hey, perhaps next time Neil can get out of a parking ticket by saying he’s related to Elton John. In fact, the actor and his husband, David Burtka, recently took their 8-year-old twins, Gideon and Harper, to their first concert ever. The musical act? None other than the “Tiny Dancer” singer.